MovieChat Forums > La isla mínima (2014) Discussion > The other guy in the picture. El otro ti...

The other guy in the picture. El otro tipo en la foto


Who was the other guy en the photo?? Was it the old guy with the hat??

Quien era el otro tipo en la foto?? Era el viejo con el gorro??

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Judging from the watch, yes.

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In the last scenes we se the bad cope (can't remember the name) dance, and it focuses on his big wrist watch. I didn't really notice this, but the person I watched it with did. Were we mean to extrapolate from that, that the bad cop could be the guy in the pictures? Not sure that I believe that myself however.

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That makes no sense, because he arrived there only much after the photo was taken.

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No I think it`s the guy with the hat who goes to the hunting lodge.Bad cop shakes hands with him later in the film and we see the watch.

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It was the old man (the factory owner).

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I think that cop at end killed the factory owner. He also took his watch.

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The Cop wearing a Silver watch in the climax scene, which was already shown with him in many other scenes. Most importantly the guy with hat was wearing a golden colored watch. I think the guy with hat is an unsettling part of the movie.

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when the bad cop shakes hands with the man with the hat, there's a deliberate detail shot of the watch. It's subtle enough, but the ambiguous ending is a reward for those who paid attention to detail.

Still, it is also a trick to invite the audience for a second viewing of the film, now knowing that they have to look out for a character with such a watch.

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So the one unsettling detail if the watch holds any significance (who knows) is that Juan is clearly left handed and wears his watch on his left, whereas the man in the hat wears it on his right. The photo shows a man with a watch on his right. BUT, isn't the photo a mirror? Not implying anything, as it being Juan makes very little sense to the plot, but there is another person not accounted for and it might not be the man in the hat. It is still interesting that the watch is the only identifying thing in the photo though. My take on it was that the movie was intentionally left ambiguous to leave a seed of doubt for the viewers - which Pedro always seems to have about everyone.

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It was his partner.
He straight out lied to him.
Yes there was an old man with a hat on, but it was a red herring.
Thats what the journalist made the commit about how he was great
at torture. He was the one who tortured the girls. I need to rewatch it,
I'm sure there are more clues involved. I was thinking the whole movie that there was
going to be a twist, and that halfway through I was already suspecting one of the cops.

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No. The set-up goes like this:

- Quini sweet-talks a girl into accepting him as her boyfriend
- he takes the girl to the hunting lodge on a couple of occasions
- once he knows the girl trusts him, the factory owner (the guy in the hat) goes to the hunting lodge to photograph and abuse the girl (he's the one who preorders and develops a film roll at one place)
- Sebastian (the gamekeeper) "befriends" the girl at the lodge by offering her a leaflet about working at Hotel Malaga (where he used to work, but the girl won't know this), which could be her chance to leave the town and Quini and the factory owner's control (or in one case, to get over Quini dumping her)
- when the girl is ready, she goes to Sebastian's place to collect her employment contract to work at Hotel Malaga.
- Sebastian imprisons the girl at his place and tortures her
- he takes the girl to Marshland and kills her if he hadn't already done so at his place.
- he does it once per year in the same month, e.g. the funfair, which makes it hard for the locals to notice anything amiss.

All victims are young (15) and have a similar appearance, which is what attracts those three guys: Quini, Correles (the factory owner) and Sebastian.

The detectives' boss tells them that unless they have solid evidence, the factory owner is off limits. The wristwatch in the photo places the factory owner at the lodge, but it is still not enough to bring him in like they can with Quini. So the factory owner gets away with it.

I suppose the question is, does Quini and the factory owner know about the gamekeeper's annual murder ritual? There is an implication that they know, but don't care.

The thing about Juan killing the girl at a protest - it's a sub-plot, nothing to do with the serial murders. It's tied to the beginning of the story: Pedro is the type that plays by the book and Juan does what he can do by any means necessary. Pedro doesn't approve this (which is why he keeps rejecting Juan's invitation to drink with him), but their working relationship evolves during the investigation. So when the truth comes out, Juan is back to square one on trusting Juan.

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Very well said.

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I believe it is the factory owner who was the 2nd guy in the pic. Only rich guys like him can order such rare films in bulk in a place like that.

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